I think what you also need to remember is game "casualties" (especially in regards to a high tech army Vs 3rd world forces) may not mean any/many are actually hurt - Most "Western" forces will tend to try to extract the wounded man immediately, That means as many as a whole section leaving the fight to carry their stricken comrade.

What I mean by this is SP reporting 6 casualties may mean 1 poor guy shot (but will probably recover) and 4 or 5 carrying him out. Game 6 casualties = military 1 casevac = public zero casualties.

Therefore no real need to change anything as this is effectively already built in (with experience and morale levels)

Yes and no. If a section (squad I think in the US) on a routine patrol takes a serious casualty what you say can, sometimes, be true: ie, a man down halts the patrol (but it often also results in reinforcements, or one sort or another, arriving). Everyone has probably seen something like this on TV documentaries.

How many games are based around very small scale routine patrols? Most are going to be reinforced Platoon sized at least.

In a platoon and Company sized op -and larger- while the man closest might do first aid and call for help, medics will deal with the casualty, if he is not simply dead, and the operation will continue, a single casualty will certainly not stop a whole section as you suggest.

Generally speaking a Platoon or Coy Orders group on an actual offensive operation -as opposed to a routine patrol- will generally include something roughly along the lines of "leave wounded men to the medics and keep bloody well moving."

Last edited by IronDuke99; August 10th, 2016 at 11:33 PM..
Reason: explanation/

Yep, platoon or larger sized units in most western (and many other) forces include a medic who's job is to deal with the wounded so everyone else can continue the battle.
Many times a buddy, or someone nearby, will provide immediate aid until the medic arrives then stay to assist/protect the medic so a "casualty" takes two people, at most, out of the battle.

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Re: Acceptable US Casualties Against 3rd World Armies

I'm trying to translate what ironduke started in his thread to our game. I'm trying to understand battle points, battle type, and the ratio of points between player 1 and player 2.

Given the force value of player 1 & player 2 respectively, is there a way to determine how many points the respective players need to gain to determine DV, MV, or Defeat. If so, how would VF's affect battle points.

For post C. 2000 games, for what little it is worth, I tend to increase the Western forces spotting to 150% and and infantry toughness to 140%, while increasing hitting to 110-120%. If terrorist/guerilla forces have any armour I will also reduce that armour's toughness by 10-20% to simulate poor maintenance,lack of spares etc. This latter is especially important with more advanced tank designs with advanced armour.

As I said, this goes along with setting the Western forces low, ie, 25% maximum in most cases, casualties to gain victory.

I tried these settings are you aware quite how powerful they are, as above using 120% to hit.
Only rough as did not set experience to 60 for each unit just switched off training & set experience to 80 for the USA & 63 for the enemy which was also USA using identical units.
Played both sides for a few turns with the following observations.

Side A exp 80 & boosted prefrences.
Side B exp 63 standard prefrences. (3rd world tend to be 60 to 65 experience.

17% average experince diffrencealready effects morale search hit etc.
80 experince attempt to dodge shots fairly often, 63 hardly ever.
80 gain more shots in 3rd & 4th slots need to be higher to gain overal shots so not much diffrence both have same number of shots for rifle & LMG.
80 will also normaly recover quicker & stay in the battle longer.

1) Did not notice much diffrence due to increased toughness though it was the thing I looked at the least, may benefit more if weapon is size zero but did not study much.

2) Spotting big diffrence on occasion side A moving 2 hexes could spot a stationary side B unit first.
If both units moving at 2 hexs A would spot B 3-4 hexes earlier. Big advantage massive if was defending.

This does not take into account side B is more likely to be suppresed as takes longer to recover & USA would be far more likely to be able to bring support weapons or vehicles to bear.
Also doesnt allow for units vision 15 or 20 vs zero helping with minor vision hindrances due to terrain & invisible smoke etc, this simulation units were identical.

3) Hitting realy dont think needs modifying, my guess the more accurate the weapon the bigger diffrence this makes.
To hit fully stationary units with accurate weapons (above6 accuracy) is often 50% better for side A

Bradley (bushmaster firing) Abrams firing at range 30 hit chances at range 30 vs identical target.
Side A around 90% vs 60% for side B.
Infantry vs infantry or above vehicles vs infantry the diffrence is not quite so severe but still a third sometimes more, depends on range.
MMG at range side A is twice as accurate as side B 6 vs 3%

I would say if using these settings side A needs there unit costs increased quite considerably especially if they are allowed the luxury of time to make best use of the adjustments.

Given completely random and totally not argumented exp/mor stats for most of the nations - with very little of actual realism - I would doubt if Mobhack covers that part.
Exp is still most important factor around. When exp is insufficiently provided, strange things happen.

I am hesitant to publish scenarios relying on changes to Preferences as it is cumbersome to manage, switching back and form between default and a particular scenario settings.

I am building a series of scenarios right now where I am using edits to unit's Experience, Morale, Speed, Ammo...etc to reflect the historical factors of leadership,supply, situational awareness and reaction and for one group, their orders to defend their location only. This is allowing me to simulate a varying quality of units without using a global preference setting outside of default.

I wonder if the game has taken into account variations in quality of armies with adjustments to formation experience and morale modifiers in the Mobhack utility.

I am hesitant to publish scenarios relying on changes to Preferences as it is cumbersome to manage, switching back and form between default and a particular scenario settings.

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The game does take this into account if I understand you & you have training switched on.
A countries experience & morale varies across the time frame according to training.
Elite units get formation specific increases.
Some units like second line get formation specific reductions.

No expert but experience effects many factors of a troops capabilites including its secondary command options, number of shots, accuracy, avoidance, vision.
Set some infantry to 120 exp. & put them against 60 exp. infantry to make the diffrences obvious.
If weapons are the same & exp diffrence is quite large the more experienced unit is better off trying to fight at long to mid range to capitalise on its accuracy & possibly extra shots & better spoting abilities.
High experince units though also are far more capable in terrain where they bump heads, more likely to spot the unit even if surpressed, hardier & often devasting firepower.

As you can adjust morale seperatly its not hard to produce the type of unit your after.
Poorly trained fanatics for example would be low experience but high morale.
You can edit individuals but just copying the formation & applying modifiers to it is quicker.

A good example of experince albeit in WWll is Russia vs Germany
Germany starts with a good experince advantage which swings through the war to the Russians favour.
At the start Russian tanks are inacurate & get very few shots with which to increase accuracy due to staying on target. Their is a Fair bit of engage & pray involved, later Russian experince increases help offset the generaly more accurate German tanks making life far easier overall.

Worse equipment so long as it can do the job is not a major problem in good hands but combined with poor troop quality its a huge problem. Experince (training) is probably therefore more important than technology till technology has an advantage that makes the other systems fairly redundant so long as you use the right tactics.